]]>http://www.access-info.org/aieinthenews/15119/feed0Government fails on election transparency pledge to publish contractshttp://www.access-info.org/aieinthenews/15035
http://www.access-info.org/aieinthenews/15035#commentsMon, 23 Mar 2015 13:11:18 +0000http://www.access-info.org/?p=15035ComputerWeekly.com| 19/03/2015English – The UK government has failed to meet its 2010 election pledge to publish all contracts in full as part of its digital reforms of the public sector. Whitehall has published many contracts almost in full after a compromise that allows suppliers to keep secret some information on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. But government has regularly neglected to publish contracts for major projects, while those contracts it has published have often comprised little more than templates stripped of distinguishing details.

Vienna, 23 March 2015 – There is a need to ensure maximum access by the public to the free flow of information according to a report published today by the International Press Institute (IPI) on freedom of expression and the press in Spain, following approval by the Spanish Senate of a controversial new public safety law heavily criticised both in Spain and abroad for its possible effects on journalism.

The report incorporates the findings of a Dec. 2014 international mission to Spain, which was led by the International Press Institute (IPI) and included representatives of Access Info Europe (AIE), the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Reporters without Borders (RSF), and the Open Society Foundation (OSF).

The report’s release also comes as Spain prepares for a packed election year, including the first national parliamentary vote following the sudden rise of a number of new political parties and social movements in reaction to the country’s ongoing economic crisis. The wave of elections began yesterday in Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region, where voters selected a new parliament.

– Mission delegates identified the following seven challenges, as covered in the report:

– Threats to the independence of Spain’s public broadcaster (RTVE)

– The lack of a dedicated independent broadcast regulator at the national level

– A need for increased transparency in the allocation of government advertising

– Potentially restrictive new legal norms, including the Public Security Law

– Newly passed transparency legislation that does not meet international standards

– A reported trend among leading public officials of holding “question-less” press conferences

– The continued existence of criminal defamation laws and, in some cases, the application of defamation laws

In addition, the report highlights the effects that Spain’s economic crisis together and the technological revolution have had on the Spanish media. According to both the Madrid Press Association (APM) and the Federation of Press Associations of Spain (FAPE), the economic crisis and above all the “precarious” employment situation faced by journalists, constitutes by far the most significant challenge to the exercise of journalism in Spain.

While concluding that press freedom in Spain “remains robust and certainly comparable to its European neighbours, at such a critical moment for the Spanish public there is a need to ensure maximum access to the free flow of information”.

Indeed, the 50-page report aims to raise awareness of areas in which Spain’s already entrenched guarantees for freedom of expression can be further strengthened, taking into account both the findings of the recent mission as well as relevant international standards on freedom of expression and information.

One such area, according to the report, is Spain’s pending public safety legislation, which RSF Spain states “not only constitutes an assault on freedom of expression but may also lead to censorship”. RSF Spain also highlights a number of recent alleged incidents of physical and legal harassment against Spanish journalists at the hands of security forces, many of which occurred during attempts to cover the actions of social movements.

In a chapter written by the EFJ’s Paco Audije, the report also outlines serious concerns regarding the current direction of Spain’s public broadcaster, which has been criticised internally and externally for steps interpreted as limiting editorial independence. In late January, for instance, RTVE’s governing board ordered the dismissal of its representative at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and president of the EBU’s influential News Committee amid news reports the board sought a representative “closer” to its president.

Access Info Europe summarises in the report widespread scepticism toward Spain’s new access to information law, which critics say “does not meet modern standards of transparency” and “lacks ambition”, resulting ain an “old-fashioned law, despite being drafted in the year 2013”.

During the Dec. mission, members of the delegation held over 35 meetings with media, civil society and government actors in both Madrid and Barcelona. The annex to the report contains a full list of meetings, which were arranged with a view toward hearing from as diverse a range of voices as possible. The mission met with key players among Spain’s established media houses, including El Mundo, El País and ABC, while also seeking the views of the so-called medios nativos digitales – new outlets born in the digital ecosystem.

The international delegation’s report comes on the footsteps of a report released by the newly formed Spanish organisation Platform for the Defence of Freedom of Expression (PDLI, according to its Spanish acronym), which likewise identified key concerns in the area of free expression, noting in particular restrictions to digital freedoms.

IPI Interim Executive Director Barbara Trionfi said IPI urged the Spanish government “to consider implementing the more urgent reforms suggested in the report” and called on “all political parties operating during this extraordinarily crowded election year to give space to freedom of expression and the press, and in particular to this report’s recommendations, in their policy manifestos.”

Following the vote in Andalusia, parliamentary votes in most of Spain’s other regions as well as regional elections will take place in May. In September, Catalonians will go to the polls on Sept. 27 amid the region’s intensifying push for independence from Madrid. A date for the national general election has not been set, though is expected to be held toward the end of 2015 or possibly in Jan. 2016.

The IPI report is the first of two reports on press freedom that IPI will release this week. The second, an IPI special report on Turkey titled “Democracy at Risk”, which draws on facts gathered during multiple IPI press freedom missions and visits to Turkey over the last four years, will be released later this week as IPI holds its 2015 World Congress and General Assembly from March 27 to 29 in Myanmar.

Pam Bartlett Quintanilla will be attending The Impacts of Civic Technology Conference 2015 (TICTeC 2015), organised by mySociety, in order to debate on the impact that civic technology and digital democracy are having upon citizens, decision makers and governments around the world, in London, United Kingdom. More information on this event here.

]]>http://www.access-info.org/events/14964/feed0AsktheEU Report on EU Transparency 2011-2012http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14891
http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14891#commentsTue, 17 Mar 2015 13:34:01 +0000http://www.access-info.org/?p=14891In the year running up to 28 September 2012, members of the European public presented a total of 214 requests for documents with European institutions and bodies using the AsktheEU.org request platform.

As of 23 September, almost 65% of the 214 requests made using AsktheEU.org resulted in full (37%) or partial (28%) disclosure of documents. In a further 19% of instances (40 requests) the institution responded that it did not hold the information requested, either because the document did
not exist or because it was not in that institutions’ possession. Information was refused in only 13 cases (6% of requests).

By contrast, 27 requests (12%), received no response at all from the institution concerned. This is also known as “administrative silence” and is problematic because it is a violation of the right of access to documents under the EU treaties as well as a breach of good administrative practice which requires that members of the public receive motivated responses to the requests. 6 of these cases of administrative silence occurred after the requestor filed a confirmatory application (appeal) and various emails had been exchanged, thus undermining the requestor’s right to legal recourse.

Other problems identified include insistence on using online contact forms for the processing of requests, repeated extensions of time limits for handling confirmatory applications and unnecessary demands for citizens to clarify their requests. For more details read the full AsktheEU.org report which will be launched in late October 2012.

In terms of the kind of information being requested, top topics on AsktheEU.org include (with more than 10% of requests each): European Union internal affairs including relations with member states; international relations; the economy, finance and business; and mechanisms to prevent conflicts of interest and lobby controls. These are followed by: environmental issues; policies; budgets; human rights issues and development.

You can download the full report here

]]>http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14891/feed0The Right of Access to Information in Cyprus: Report and Recommendationshttp://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14840
http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14840#commentsTue, 17 Mar 2015 12:10:26 +0000http://www.access-info.org/?p=14840This report consists of the findings of research into the right of access to information in Cyprus conducted in 2010 by Access Info Europe, KAB and IKME as part of the Access Info Cyprus Project.

It was researched, written and edited by: Helen Darbishire and David Pardo of Access Info Europe; Faika Deniz Pasha, Derviş Musannif, Ilke Dagli and Didem Erel of the EU Cyprus Association (KAB); and Orestis Tringides and Alecos Tringides of the Institute for Social-Political Studies (IKME). Additional legal analysis was by David Goldberg, Oncel Polili and Panayiota Stavrou. Thanks to Andreas Pavlou of Access Info Europe for additional analysis and editing.

You can download the report here

]]>http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14840/feed0The Anti-Corruption Transparency Monitoring Methodologyhttp://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14835
http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14835#commentsTue, 17 Mar 2015 11:52:08 +0000http://www.access-info.org/?p=14835This guide on how to test levels of transparency in areas of government prone to corruption was released by Access Info Europe on October 2011, together with the results of the first large-scale monitoring conducted using the methodology in Croatia, conducted by Transparency International Croatia.

The “Anti-Corruption Transparency Monitoring Methodology” was presented at the UN Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption currently taking place in Marrakesh, Morocco.

The data from Croatia, where 200 answers were received to 560 questions (35% or around one third), shows that there are areas where huge progress has been made on transparency in some areas such as anti-corruption policies, conflict of interest, and licensing procedures.

Corruption-prone areas still closed to public scrutiny included public procurement, financing of political parties, and privatisation of state assets – not one single question on privatisation, a controversial area in Croatia, was answered.

]]>http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14835/feed0Report on the European Central Bank and the right of access to EU documentshttp://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14712
http://www.access-info.org/pub-and-toolkits/14712#commentsTue, 10 Mar 2015 14:12:14 +0000http://www.access-info.org/?p=14712Of the 25 access to documents requests made by citizens to the European Central Bank via AsktheEU.org between September 2011 and August 2013, just eight were successful in obtaining all or some of the information requested.

In three instances there was full disclosure of the documents requested. The other five requests were successful even though no documents were provided because the requested correspondence did not exist or the meetings enquired about had never taken place.

Five requests concerned documents that the ECB did not hold, and requesters were generally referred to another institution which was likely to possess those documents.

There were seven partial refusals to provide information based on the exceptions found in the ECB’s access to documents rules, and two refusals to provide any information at all.

The incomplete response avoided answering questions about a former staff member with the evasive answer “we are not in the position to provide you with this information.”

Just once was the outcome of a request “administrative silence” as the ECB did not send the requester any acknowledgement of receipt and no response has been provided to date. At the time of publishing this report, there was still one request awaiting response.

Summary: Corrupted Attachment and Excluded Information

The initial request was sent in Spanish to the Central Mercantile Register on 4 November 2013. At the time, Spain had still not adopted an access to information law, which meant that there was no legal obligation for the register to respond, nor were there specific deadlines for such a response.

However, only two days later, Access Info received a reply asking us to clarify the request, and to specify exactly which type of information we wanted. We responded immediately, clarifying that we were seeking access to a full copy of the company register database.

On 25 November 2013, the Central Mercantile Register sent us, in attachment, a Microsoft Access file, but the file only weight 1 kilobyte and it was impossible to open. We responded on the same day asking them to re-attach the file.

On 26 November 2013, the file was re-sent, but again it was impossible to open and appeared to be corrupted. On 3 December 2013, Access Info wrote back to the Central Mercantile Register, explaining that it was impossible to open the file and asking if it would be possible to send us the data on a USB stick.

No response was ever received to this follow-up request.

On 10 December 2014, the Spanish transparency law finally came into force. However, the scope of the law explicitly excludes information which is already covered by special provisions for public access, such as the Spanish company register.

Accessing the Spanish Company Register

Information available (for free)

None.

Provision for public access

Access to the Registro Mercantil’s information must be paid for (cost of the information can be found below); you can either create a permanent access account, or a one-time access account.Once you have created one of these accounts and made a payment, it gives you an access username and password. You can then search company information via the Registro’s website (http://www.rmc.es/Home.aspx), where you can search by company’s name, administrator/legal representative, or by “project deposits” (merging processes, etc).